Sail This Ship of Fools
by NeoVenus22
Summary: Her parents had always encouraged the pursuit of knowledge. Violet wonders if her parents knew she'd be looking into their own lives, strewn with questions. Spoilers for The End. [complete]


Spoilers: Book the Thirteenth, The End.

Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me. Characters are property of Lemony "Daniel Handler" Snicket and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler.

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They have been at sea for three days. The water is deceptively smooth and clear, promising a clean view to the very bottom, but Violet knows it's too deep to see. Something lurks under the water. A giant question mark, punctuation to a number of months of which she has since lost count. Since birth, Violet's life has been peppered with questions, marked with them. Many she brought upon herself, such as wondering how a light bulb worked, or if a microwave could be faster. Some questions could be answered with research. Her parents had always encouraged the pursuit of knowledge, supported the concept of burying one's nose in a book, or the past, or a book of the past, to see what came before. Violet wonders if her parents knew she'd be looking into their own lives, strewn with questions.

Violet does not have nearly enough answers. She has answered questions past, but has come up with so many more. The balance continues to tip away from her.

Though she has hardly been alone in all her time on the island, her heart longs for company. She looks at the ripples left in the wake of the boat's progress, then ahead at the clear surface they're about to rip through and invade. She wonders where they are, the Quagmires. She is thinking of Duncan, and is working up the energy to think of Quigley, when she finds a hand in hers.

"What's wrong?" Sunny asks.

Violet smiles and stares out over the water. "I'm a little lonely."

"How can you be lonely? You have all of us."

"You can be lonely even among your closest friends," Violet attempts to explain. "When you're older, you'll understand."

"I'm older now," says Sunny, "and I'm not sure I'll ever understand."

"You know what," says Violet with melancholy, "me neither."

_The clever Baudelaire children_, Violet used to hear, praise from the guests at another of their parents' dinner parties. Violet the inventor. Klaus the researcher. What thoughts run through their heads? What is Violet going to create next? What facts has Klaus learned? Sunny was so young the guests never paid her any mind beyond her cute habit of biting them hello. Adults didn't think of her having an identity beyond her age. But an infant was what she was, not who she was.

Violet sweeps her sister into a hug. "You are so much wiser than anyone I've ever known," she praises.

She can see the next question in her sister's eyes, as if all the questions the Baudelaires will ever ask are scripted out somewhere in the universe, to be plucked in order and inquired. Of the world, of themselves, of each other. Violet does not know if there's a corresponding sheet of answers, but she does know the answer to Sunny's unasked question. So much of their lives have been based in talk, in demanding and defending, in explaining and exploring, that it is a rare opportunity where Violet does not need words to communicate.

She bends down, though Sunny is taller now and does not need Violet to bend so much, kisses her sister's forehead, and embraces her again tightly. Where there are no answers, there is love, and faith, and hope. Violet has lost hope many times, every time she turned around and Count Olaf grimaced at her through another poor disguise, but it gets renewed when she looks at her siblings.

Hope flares when she looks at Sunny, who smells of homemade spices, as she's just come from the corner of the boat they've designated as the galley.

Hope burns when she looks at Klaus, sitting at the stern, the furrows of his brow smoothing as he pours over the Quagmire's jumbled notes for the thousandth time and at last can make heads or tails of the information scribbled on them.

And hope rages like a wildfire, hot and unstoppable and unable to be extinguished by all of the cool, clear, blue water surrounding them, as she looks at Beatrice, laying curled on a mat of clothes borrowed from the island, sleeping soundly and without fear. Like Sunny before her, an infant is _what_ Beatrice is, not who. _Who_ she is cannot yet be determined, is unknown by all of them, least of all by Beatrice. Maybe they'll know when the boat finally docks on the shores of the world they left behind. The world that left them behind first, Violet reminds herself, her arm around the shoulders of her not-so-little sister.

"What will we find when we get back?" Sunny asks, laying her hand flat against the panel of wood separating them from the water.

"Distress," Violet postulates. "Disorder. Disarray." Sunny frowns, and Violet pastes a smile upon her face. She doesn't mean to share her worries with her sister. They'd lived so long under the umbrella of worry. "And friends. I'm sure some of our old caretakers are safe, and hoping we are, as well. But it doesn't matter. We've long since proven we don't need someone to watch out for us, and soon we'll have the Baudelaire fortune to ourselves. We can build a home. You can go to a real school. We'll be..." She thinks _safe_, but does not say it, because she does not believe it. Olaf is buried, but Olaf was not the only source of their problems, just one large, burning star in a constellation of many. Privately, Violet worries that they'll never be _safe_. Publicly, she finishes her thought, "Happy." She brushes hair out of Sunny's face, pink from fading sunburn. "Together."

"Sunny," says Klaus, crossing the small boat to them and tucking the Quagmire's notes in his pocket as he does so, "the baby will be waking up soon. She'll probably be hungry."

"I'll make something," Sunny says, and Violet fights the urge to watch her sister walk away, to constantly keep track of the comings and goings of her siblings. There have been too many close calls that weigh heavily on her soul. The boat is small, and she is not going far, and Violet's thoughts detour to wonder how much of the conversation Klaus has heard.

"I wonder if we'll even know how to interact with others," he suggests, raking his eyes over the beckoning horizon. She feels a prick of alarm. Abandoning the relative safety (and the safety of relatives) of the island seems more absurd now as they lay exposed in the water.

Still now, they wonder. They ask questions. They've read the wealth of the book, the history of the Baudelaires before this generation came into being, and are left with more questions than ever about the past. The questions about the future are of their own design.

"I don't know," she admits, reveling in the peculiar relief that comes with an unanswerable question. Klaus tilts his head slightly, watching her and waiting for the rest, but there is no more. Violet is tired in that special way, where she feels lazy and curious, and would like information, but would rather it fall into her lap than seek it out. Klaus has never waited for anything to come to him, so she can explain this no more easily than she can explain how she feels alone when surrounded by the people she loves best.

"We've always done so well with each other," she decides. "That's all that matters."

"You can claim the fortune soon," he says, "and we can clear our name."

"There's little point. We're not the Baudelaires anymore, not the way we once were."

"The Baudelaires, plus one."

Violet glances over at Sunny, trying to tempt little Beatrice with her latest creation. "Poor Klaus, surrounded by girls," she comments. "Have you thought about Fiona?"

"Have you thought about Quigley?" he counters. For awhile, she'd longed for her siblings to be older, so she could discuss some of the things burdening her, but now that they are, she wishes more than ever to keep her secrets to herself. Hearing Quigley's name aloud is one more painful reminder of all the things she does not know.

"I almost hope we find them out here," she says. "The Great Unknown. Then we'd never have to go back."

"Sunny and the baby need structure," he answers. "They've lacked it for so long. They need to see the world before they decide to run away from it. We can't make that decision for them."

"But you agree," she says, plucking the truth from between his words. "You don't want to go back, either."

"We must," is all he answers, then absently pats the pocket where he keeps what mementos he has of their journeys, before he retreats to the stern to join the girls.

Violet braces herself against the boat, scanning the water below for telltale shadows, but sees nothing. Yet. They are still moving towards the horizon.


End file.
